Breaking Sky

by Cori McCarthy

  Pippin laughed so hard that she took another step back. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping bizarre tears from his eyes. “You’re so far off the mark that it’s funny.”

  “Yeah. Hilarious.”

  He reached for his headphones, but she was faster. She flung them across the room, and they hit the wall before flopping onto his bed. He met her gaze coolly. “Do you want to fight?”

  “No. Do you want to fight with me?”

  A knock sounded on the door, followed by Riot’s voice. “Nyx. Food.”

  They continued to stare at each other while the moment released slowly. Too slowly. She’d never fought with Pippin before. They snarked and rubbed elbows sometimes, but this felt so strange. Borderline hostile. When Chase forced herself to speak again, her voice cracked. “We’re going to the chow hall. Come with us?”

  “Not hungry.” He returned to his notebook.

  “Eat. Let’s go,” Riot called sluggishly.

  “What a dreamboat,” Pippin mocked. She could tell he was pressuring himself to sound normal too. “How do you contain yourself?” Chase play-punched his shoulder, and Pippin grabbed her hand, a hint of wild right behind his eyes. “I’ll talk to you later, but you have to share too. Deal?”

  She braked again. She couldn’t help it. “Yeah…right.”

  Pippin must have heard the taillights in Chase’s tone. He let go of her hand with a frown and went back to his notebook, scribbling so hard his pencil went off the side of the paper and he wrote across the desk.

  • • •

  Riot and Chase got their lunches to go and sat beneath the largest tree on the Green. The sunlamps shone a very brilliant orange-yellow, but Chase looked beyond, past the glass ceiling to the navy sky tinged with flame blue. The color reminded her of Tristan’s eyes reflecting JAFA’s blaze.

  The fire was so high…

  Her imagination hacked her consciousness. She saw red drones overhead. Missiles falling hard and fast. Her world turned to fire and screams and broken glass. Is that what it had been like for Tristan? Is that what it would be like if this face-off opened itself to another world war?

  Her mouth had gone thick and dry, near-panic leaning over her like cloud shadow. She tossed her sandwich to Riot.

  “Where’s Pippin?” Sylph sat cross-legged in the grass beside them, flipping her braid over her shoulder. “We need to discuss our anti-Canadian strategy for the trials.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Busy with what?” Riot asked.

  “With whatever he wants to do,” Chase said, trying not to give away the fact that they’d been arguing. Just thinking about how they’d snapped at each other made her feel red—both aggravated and embarrassed. Truth was, Chase wasn’t used to fighting with anyone. Whenever she disagreed, she cut and ran. It was a policy that had kept her from having scores of friends but also from all the suffocating drama at the Star.

  A policy that had just failed.

  “Pippin’s not with us.” Sylph produced an inch-thick folder.

  Chase peered over at the stream of notes. OFF-THE-CUFF was written across the top in intensely red ink. “A collection of your thoughts on my flying?”

  Sylph eyed her coolly. “We’ll get to that soon. More importantly, we need to discuss our major weaknesses. And your primary one is that Pippin is irreversibly contaminated. He’s been hanging out with the Phoenix team.”

  “Pippin hasn’t been with the Canadians,” Chase said, instantly wondering if he had been.

  “He has. In the rec room. Every night.” Riot shoved her sandwich into his mouth like a dog bent on swallowing something whole. What was she doing with him again?

  “Why don’t you know where he’s been? Or wait”—Sylph’s eyes gleamed—“you sent him to spy on them. Didn’t you?”

  “What?”

  Sylph went back to her notebook. “Disappointing. But we’ll work around it.”

  Chase popped her knuckles one by one. Pippin was hanging out with Tristan and Romeo?

  “Speak of the devils,” Sylph said as Tristan and his RIO set their bags down at the foot of a tree a few yards away. “I can’t believe everyone is so infatuated with them. Exchange students,” Sylph said. “What a euphemism. Like Ri Xiong Di would even allow us to have an exchange program. I suppose they can’t hide the big one’s French accent.”

  “They’re survivors, Sylph,” Chase found herself saying. “They’ve been through a lot.”

  “Yeah. They look it.”

  Chase couldn’t argue with her. Tristan and Romeo certainly didn’t act like they’d escaped with only their lives a week ago. Four underclassmen girls stood in a semicircle around them. Their titters and body language proved they were all in love with Tristan. Romeo, seemingly oblivious, kept trying to engage one of them in a thumb-wrestling match.

  “Maybe we should be working with them to make the trials look amazing, not scheming behind their backs, Sylph.”

  “The government board wants combat and skill. Not an American-Canadian alliance. No matter what General Tourn said. You are my wingman. They are the enemy. That’s the setup of the trials from what I’ve gathered from Kale. We have to outfly them, Nyx.”

  Chase eyed Sylph. “Why do you hate them so much?”

  “Hate implies emotional investment, of which I have none.” Sylph shut the folder and stood.

  “Pippin said that one of us might get booted from the trials. That they only need two jets.”

  Sylph acted as though she hadn’t heard Chase. “Fifteen minutes to class. Don’t be late. If you get put on restricted duty again, we’ll never have time to figure this out.” Sylph left.

  Chase shook her head. “Sometimes I worry she’s not all there.”

  “You struck a nerve, that’s all.” Riot reclined in the grass with his hands behind his head. “She’s scared. She doesn’t like them because they’re faster than she is.”

  “Everyone’s faster than she is. She slows down every time she has to pull a maneuver. Maybe that’s what I should tell her when we’re ‘exchanging weaknesses.’”

  “Please don’t. I like your face better without bruises.” He tried to take Chase’s hand, but she leaned back. Across the way, Romeo was hanging upside down from a tree branch. That RIO was a helpless, crazed flirt; she’d gathered that much. Tristan was harder to pin down. She stared at his dark hair, his easygoing everything. It felt like a front, but it was hard to say. She’d only glimpsed a few flashes of the more serious and driven side underneath.

  Enough to want to see more.

  The fear came back with her curiosity. He had so much power over her, and he probably didn’t even know it. All Tristan had to do was tell one person that she was the spawn of the military’s angel of death…

  Why, why, why had he been waiting in the hall?

  Tanner walked across the Green. He paused to talk to Tristan like they were old friends. Boy, this day just keeps getting better.

  “Hey.” Riot pinched her ankle. “Want to meet up tonight? Boys’ locker room?”

  “Ugh, no.” She couldn’t stop herself. “I think we’re played out, Riot.”

  Riot sat up. “What’re you upset about?”

  Chase had answers to that, but none that had to do with Riot. “Do you tell people when we hook up?” she asked, remembering Tanner’s disclosure in the hangar, back before JAFA burned and her whole world turned Canadian.

  “Are you asking if I brag? Of course I brag. You should like that.” Riot’s frown zapped all the cute out of his face. “This is about the stupid Phoenix team. Everyone loves Arrow and Romeo. You too, I bet.”

  “I don’t.” Chase was still staring at Tristan. Busted. She looked away in a hurry, catching Riot’s doubt. “I’m keeping an eye on them for Sylph.”

  “Don’t be a skank, Nyx,” he yelled. He left, and every cadet
on the green, including the Canadian contingent, was looking at her. She put on a small smile and lay back in the grass with her arms behind her head.

  What a morning. The emotions that had been so new earlier—like waking up in a strange room—now made her feel like being stranded on a different planet. She’d fought with Pippin, found out that the trials might be reorganized, pissed off Sylph, and dumped Riot.

  Then there was the X factor: she still hadn’t figure out what to do about Arrow.

  To make matters worse, the loneliness that she hadn’t felt since before she’d come to the Star trickled over her. She wasn’t supposed to feel this here. She was supposed to be surrounded by peers, flying in one proud direction and striving for an end to the Second Cold War. Tears sprang forward, and she made herself whistle “Another One Bites the Dust”—that crazy old song Pippin loved to sing after one of her affairs flamed out.

  Her faux nonchalance was heavy and hard to maintain.

  And it crashed in a heartbeat.

  Beneath the nearest tree, Tristan and Tanner watched Chase as one. Tanner appeared to be mid-swear, his back hunched sourly like a gargoyle. Chase sat up. They were talking about her. Clearly.

  Tristan must have just told Tanner about her dad.

  16

  LETHAL CONE

  Left Vulnerable

  Chase wasn’t nearly as swift on the ground as she was in the sky, but she knew how to maneuver. She caught Tristan’s arm when he bent to tie his boots and hauled him so hard and fast through a door that the cadets he’d been walking with didn’t even notice.

  Once she was inside, she lost speed. She’d thought the room was a closet. Nope. It was a classroom. A big one. At least it was empty, although that just meant it echoed the slam of the door a little ominously.

  “Hello, Chase,” Tristan said, rubbing the arm she’d manhandled him by. “Let me guess, you want to talk to me?”

  Her mouth was suddenly dry, but she twisted the front of his uniform in both fists and pressed him to the wall. “What did you tell Tanner?”

  “What?”

  “I saw you talking to him. You were looking at me. I’m not an idiot. I know what you told him.” Tears spotted her eyes, but Chase only tightened her hold on his shirt.

  Tristan looked even more boyish close up. “I didn’t tell him anything. He was telling me about you.”

  “Wha…why?”

  “Because I asked.”

  Chase let go but not without a small shove. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you saved my life a week ago, and now you won’t make eye contact with me. It’s a little strange.”

  Chase stared down his blue eyes pointedly, and something tightened in her chest. “Happy now?”

  “Not really,” he said. “You look like you’re going to clock me.”

  “Well, you can’t tell anyone…” She dug for the words but only succeeded in feeling the tears again. “What you heard…you can’t just tell people…” Oh God, was he going to make her say it?

  “I wouldn’t.” Tristan straightened his uniform. “I know a life-altering secret when I hear one.”

  “Um, all right.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. Could she believe him? “Tell me why you were eavesdropping in the hallway after the JAFA debriefing.”

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping on purpose. I was waiting for you.” He unhooked his ponytail and finger-combed his hair. Chase thought it looked a lot softer than normal boy hair.

  “Why were you waiting?”

  “I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t know then just how hard that is.” Tristan showed his frustration a little, gritting his teeth when he swore. Chase found it strangely endearing that she’d gotten under his nerves. “I wanted to ask you not to tell anyone about how I kind of…went catatonic in the hallway. Remember?”

  “I do.”

  He pushed his hands through his hair, and Chase wondered why that was supposed to be sexy. It looked reckless. Like he needed to get a hold on himself and every other part of his body was unsteady.

  “Oh. I know why you’re worried,” Chase said, blinking hard as if the sun were dawning over the SMART Board and right into her eyes. “You think they’ll take your wings. It’s an act, isn’t it? You want everyone to think you’re nice so you don’t get put on the Down List. That’s why you’re befriending everyone.”

  “I happen to think I am nice, at least under normal circumstances. When I’m not mourning the death of some of my best friends.” Whatever light had come with understanding Tristan went out. He was warning her off, carefully choosing his words. “Maybe it’s cliché to claim revenge, but I won’t fail before the trials. I want my chance to face down Ri Xiong Di.”

  Chase nodded. She could understand vengeance. “I won’t say anything, and I’ll even help you hide it from Sylph. She’s the person who you should be worried about. In exchange, you won’t say anything about my—about Tourn. Do we have a deal?”

  His eyes narrowed in a way that made her look away. “You think we need to use something against each other?”

  “I think it’s a smart way to play this. We’re opponents.” She paused and made herself look at him again. It was surprisingly hard. “I won’t say a word. And I hope you do the same. No matter how much you want to beat me in the trials.”

  Chase started to leave, and he walked after her.

  “Is that how someone would beat you?” he asked. She swung around, and the teasing smile he aimed her way was a bit of a surprise. “I was just planning to outfly you.”

  She twisted the front point of her hair. “I’d like to see you try, Tristan Router.”

  Chase paused at the door. Her plan had been to threaten Tristan and leave him too scared of her to tell anyone about Tourn. Now they were what? Flirting?

  “We have class,” she mumbled, surprised she was holding the door open for him and even more surprised that she was apparently inviting him to walk with her.

  On the way, she began to talk about the Star. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “This class is for pilots in all the grade levels. We watch fighter flight tapes from as far back as World War I. It’s cool.”

  “How many pilots are there?” Tristan asked. He walked as fast as she did, and she wanted to like him for it. Even Pippin couldn’t keep up with her went she hit optimum hallway speed.

  “About a hundred. A tenth of the cadet population. The rest are in specialized training. Engineers, navigators, ground crew, what have you. Flyboys are in the minority. We try to stick together.”

  When the conversation slipped away, Chase found herself close to a strange edge.

  Ordinarily, she liked being around boys because they made her darker thoughts vanish. But she wasn’t getting that vibe from Tristan. He reminded her of JAFA—of her father’s dismissive words—and yet he was still looking down at her with an easygoing smile. Weird.

  They passed through one of the glass tunnels that connected the buildings to the Green. Outside, the snow whirled like the wind was blowing three ways at once. Chase began to patch together a question that ordinarily she wouldn’t bring up—to ask Tristan if he worried about the other shoe dropping. About what might happen if Ri Xiong Di turned its foul intentions on the Star. Or her real question. The big one: did he blame her for what happened to JAFA?

  But before she could put it all together, she remembered that tormented look she’d gotten out of him in the hallway, and she couldn’t.

  When they entered the Green, a group of her fellow juniors walked by and said hello to Tristan. Nothing to Chase, although one of them chanted her call sign. It had the effect of insinuating that Tristan was now with Chase…of course.

  “Aren’t you the star of the Star?” She winced at her lameness. “How do you find the energy?”

  “I’m not as popular as you,” Tristan said. “Nyx is a big dea
l. Everyone knows you.”

  “Everyone thinks they know Nyx,” she corrected, a little stumped as to why she’d take the time to set the record straight.

  “They like you a helluva lot better than Sylph.”

  “That’s not a fair comparison. I’m pretty sure not even Sylph likes Sylph.”

  “Maybe not. Although, no one seems to know anything about you. You’re a mystery,” he said. “For example, when I asked people what part of the country you’re from, I got three different answers.”

  “That’s because I don’t answer that question. They only know what I want them to know.” Chase lost her amusement, remembering Tristan’s tandem dark look with Tanner. She could only imagine what Tanner would say. Actually, she could imagine exactly what he would say. “I’m the heartbreaker. Is that what you’re hearing?”

  “I believe Tanner Won used the term love vampire.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Tristan smiled, not that genial look he tossed to everyone, but a genuine smirk. She liked it a little too much, and it encouraged her to give him just a little more. “It’s a bad habit at this point. I say I want to fool around. The crush in question agrees, but then they want more…”

  Chase let him think she meant sex. Most of the time, her hookups did want sex, which she didn’t mess around with. Pregnancy, STDs—no thanks. Of course with Tanner, sex wasn’t what he wanted. “I’m not into more,” she added a little late.

  “Tanner said you forgot who he was. Walked right past him like he wasn’t there.” Tristan whistled. “That’s tough stuff. He seems like a worthy sort of guy.”

  “He was different.” Chase started to walk slower, feeling herself defocus. She remembered lying on Tanner’s bed and telling him to kiss her, only for him to stare at her with eyes that stirred in warmth. He asked about where she came from. About her family and dreams. It wasn’t until she started to want to answer him that she had to cut him off.

  Chase had walked past Tanner in the hall, avoided his smiles, then his scowls, and then his heartbreaking glances. She had fed tears to the shower and ached to explain. Instead, she found the opposite of Tanner: Riot. A boy whose needs were upfront, like the kind of restaurant where the ketchup and mustard are always out on the table.